Sen. Bill Hagerty (R-TN) introduced a bill Tuesday to prevent President Joe Biden from creating a new consulate in Jerusalem aimed at Palestinians that would divide Israel’s capital city diplomatically, and violate U.S. law and international treaties.
The bill, “Upholding the 1995 Jerusalem Embassy Law Act of 2021,” already has the support of 35 Republicans. It comes after reports that the administration intends to ignore Israeli objections to the creation of a separate consulate in Jerusalem.
Biden’s unilateral move would violate the 1995 Jerusalem Embassy Act, which recognizes Jerusalem as Israel’s capital and says that it should remain undivided. It also provided for a U.S. embassy there, which President Donald Trump established.
A separate consulate, established without Israel’s consent, would also violate the Vienna Convention on Consular Relations, a treaty signed by the U.S. and Israel (among others) in 1963 and ratified unanimously, 81-0, by the U.S. Senate in 1969.
The text of Hagerty’s bill restates existing U.S. policy on Jerusalem, and provides: “Notwithstanding any other provision of law, none of the funds authorized to be appropriated on or after the date of the enactment of this subsection may be used for a United States Embassy, Consulate General, Legation, Consular Office, or any other diplomatic facility in Jerusalem other
than the United States Embassy to the State of Israel.”
“President Biden continues to push forward his inflammatory plan to establish a second mission in Israel’s capital city of Jerusalem—one for the Israelis and a second one for the Palestinians—despite the fact that this plan violates the Jerusalem Embassy Act of 1995 and is completely opposed by the Government of Israel,” Sen. Hagerty said in a public statement.
“It is regrettable that the Biden Administration insists on making moves that divide the United States and Israel when our two nations should be laser-focused on stopping Iran’s terror-sponsoring regime from going nuclear, on countering growing threats from Hizballah, Hamas, and other Iran-backed terrorist groups, and on strengthening and expanding the historic Abraham Accords that truly have increased peace in the Middle East,” he continued.
Hagerty concluded: “The Trump Administration kept its promise to move the U.S. Embassy to Jerusalem, the eternal and indivisible capital of the Jewish State, and Congress must do everything in our power to strengthen our posture.”
The Republican Jewish Coalition supported Hagerty’s bill in a statement:
Israeli leaders in both the government and the opposition have made it clear that they strongly oppose the Biden administration’s plan to re-open the consulate in Jerusalem. But left-wing members of Congress are encouraging President Biden to ignore those concerns, and Secretary of State Antony Blinken has insisted that plans to re-open the consulate must “move forward.”
We urge President Biden, Secretary Blinken, and Democrats in Congress not to make yet another disastrous foreign policy decision and instead follow the lead of Senator Hagerty and others – Jerusalem should remain Israel’s undivided capital, full stop.
Not one elected Democrat attended the opening of the U.S. embassy in Jerusalem in 2018. Biden voted for the 1995 Jerusalem Embassy Act and said during his presidential campaign that he would not reverse Trump’s embassy decision.
He made a number of unilateral promises to Palestinians, including a consulate in “East” Jerusalem. The building that Biden proposes to use for the consulate, however, is in western Jerusalem, which Israel has governed since independence.
In a Wall Street Journal op-ed Tuesday, legal scholar Eugene Kontorovich suggested that Republicans ought to withhold support for Biden’s nominee for U.S. ambassador to Israel, Thomas Nides, until Biden backs off his plans for a consulate.
Joel B. Pollak is Senior Editor-at-Large at Breitbart News and the host of Breitbart News Sunday on Sirius XM Patriot on Sunday evenings from 7 p.m. to 10 p.m. ET (4 p.m. to 7 p.m. PT). He is the author of the recent e-book, Neither Free nor Fair: The 2020 U.S. Presidential Election. His recent book, RED NOVEMBER, tells the story of the 2020 Democratic presidential primary from a conservative perspective. He is a winner of the 2018 Robert Novak Journalism Alumni Fellowship. Follow him on Twitter at @joelpollak.
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